After the excitement of London and London Frocktails, we got the Eurostar to Ghent, where neither of us had visited before, but which has long been on our bucket list. It’s a magnificently historic city, with a modern overlay, providing a surprisingly cohesive whole.

It’s hard to know where to start, so I’m going to upload photos and see if I can remember what and where they are.

First up is the Old Fish Market, which has a gatehouse and used to have open air markets. There are statues of Neptune, but I’m not sure I captured this, as I was on the other side of the river, but you can imagine fishermen offloading their catches for sale.

The Castle of the Counts is one of the last remaining medieval fortresses in Flanders, and it’s a remarkable intact castle, with a history dating back to the Roman occupation.

The white blow up art installation was quite interesting. To stop it collapsing people had to blow air into it with bicycle type pumps which were installed on the bridge.

A relatively recent addition to the attractions is the Design Museum. The original museum is housed in a Roccoco style house, but there is now a modern wing and “The Loft” has open balconies from which magnificent views of Ghent are available.

We found an open air flea market, which had so many interesting stalls. I did find one selling haberdashery. So tempting…

This bridge leads to a residential area, and is known as the “Bridge of Imperial Pleasures”, and was built in 2000.

These beautiful buildings line the quay and (I think!) housed sailors Guildhalls.

It took us a while to work out what this rather strange structure was. It’s called the City Pavilion and was built in 2012, and it sits in the shadow of the Belfry, just behind. Apparently it’s known locally as “the sheep pen”, but as we left Ghent we could see a large function being set up in it.

This is St Nicholas’ Church and it was built in the 12th century. It was built with money from merchants and sailors and is truly remarkable.

Nearby is this rather remarkable building, which sadly seems to house a Taco shop, The top is crowned with dancing creatures, which would look right at home at Halloween.

This red statue, naked except for her boots and headphones, and is some sort of guerilla art, She is known as the “Ghent Lorelei”, and a local sculptor used a small boat one night to put her up on the pier. This spot was full of people resting and reading, and it was rather lovely to see.

We chose to not do a river cruise, instead we walked along as many of the canals as possible. It was so picturesque, but you might notice the green algal bloom that is everywhere, which was caused by the unusually warm summer. I feel concern for any aquatic life trying to exist under it.

This rather lovely building was right at the end of the line and the canal dribbles under it. No idea what purpose it served, but those arrow slits suggest a fortification of some sort.

Along the way we saw this painting. Is it an owl, a dog or a fox? We spent quite a long time trying to decide, and perhaps it’s all three. So clever.

There are a lot of bridges over the canals, and views like this are quite common.

This bollard was outside a craft shop. It completely captivated me!

I do love a good door and this was was enormous!

We walked through this square fairly frequently. The architecture never ceased to amaze me.

I need to take better notes, as I cannot remember what this was, but I thought I’d own up rather than deleting it.

We had four nights in Ghent, but had two day trips, but still managed to cover a lot of ground.